John Bolton never met a war he didn't like, except Vietnam. That would be the one he refused to fight in.

Today he is calling up every marker he has to create the narrative for a legal justification for an attack on Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spilled the beans on just before the Warsaw Stink Fest last week.

This morning GOP House Organ the Washington Times produced this howler of an exclusive to say that al-Qaeda groups in Syria are getting Double Ultra Secret funding from, guess who?

Iran is providing high-level al Qaeda operatives with a clandestine sanctuary to funnel fighters, money and weapons across the Middle East, according to Trump administration officials who warn that the long-elusive, complex relationship between two avowed enemies of America has evolved into an unacceptable global security threat.
With the once-prominent Islamic State receding from the spotlight, The Washington Times has learned that the administration is focusing increasingly on the unlikely alliance between Iran and al Qaeda, with what some sources say is an eye toward establishing a potential legal justification for military strikes against Iran or its proxies.

Note: all of those links are simple internal links to Washington Post article categories for SEO purposes. There are no actual sources, only the illusion of sources.

The only people saying this are the ones in the administration and their pet think tankers who provide the same level of credible intelligence as Fusion GPS did for the DNC to 'get' Donald Trump.

After the debacles in Warsaw and Munich where the U.S. couldn't drum up official support for its anti-Iran policy outside those who were behind it already, Bolton needs to lay the groundwork for the U.S. to 'go it alone' if necessary.

The narrative of a dangerous Iran is necessary to keep public support for Bolton's plans to balkanize Syria. He refuses to give up on the dream. This is why the U.S. is refusing to actually leave Syria without a number of poison pills that would then justify going back in there once the obstacle of Trump is removed or, at least, wholly neutralized.

Leaving weapons in the hands of the Kurdish SDF forces, to keep Turkey anxious is one of these. And this article is yet another. The recent ISIS attack is a third. The MEK attack on IRGC forces in Iran is another.

All of this to scuttle the rational solution of allowing Syrian forces to move in, alongside Russia, to stabilize the region east of the Euphrates river and begin the rebuilding and healing process.

"… actively investing and are forcing their allies to pay for redevelopment of that part of Syria [Kurdish territory east of the Euprhates]. However, they are prohibiting their allies to invest in the restructuring of the infrastructure of the other parts of Syria which are controlled by the legitimate government."

If there was any clearer point about how nothing has changed about our plans in Syria, I truly can't think of one. Putin's observation that "Presidents change, policy does not," continues to ring true every day of the Trump administration.